Let’s face it. Being a business owner can be stressful–a lot! And often requires stepping out of our comfort zone to try new things, take risks, and put ourselves out there, which naturally initiates a feeling of fear, doubt, and uncertainty.

These emotions can cause us to procrastinate on taking action, diminish our creative thinking, drain our confident energy when communicating with others, and engage in unproductive habits–all sabotaging our potential to be and achieve our best.

But how do you stop that “emotion train” once it’s “left the station?” It can seem impossible, even if you’re consciously telling yourself to “snap out of it.”

My go-to technique is EFT (emotional freedom techniques) and I’d like to share with you one of its derivatives, the 9-Gamut Technique, in a quick tutorial video.

It’s the night before your blog or newsletter is due to go out and your mind is drawing a blank. You can’t think of anything to write. Or what comes to your mind is uninspiring.

What to do? Skip it and hope no one will notice? That might be okay if you have a small list or one with a very low open rate. Or you don’t mind being out of integrity with your commitment to your business and your readers.

But what if you are committed to writing something helpful or making sure your readers know they can count on you, or staying in alignment with your commitments to you business?

The weeks of Christmas and New Years are usually a time when people (especially employees) go into “coast mode,” just doing the bare minimum of work until the end of the year.

But if you’re a small business owner or sales professional, it’s important to not let the opportunities of these last 2 weeks slip past you because you become “complacent.” In fact, you may have “year-end sales quotas” to fulfill–either from your employer or from yourself (hopefully you set an annual income goal at the beginning of the year).

If you hate the way sales and marketing copy makes you feel—you know, sales-y, inauthentic, hype-y, or just plain icky, you’re not alone. Traditional sales and marketing copy (also known as direct-response copy) sells by tapping into fear.

But, according to Michele, you don’t have to use fear–you can sell and market your business using love instead. And when you do that, you stop manipulating and twisting arms to get buyers, and instead start attracting, inspiring and inviting your ideal clients into your business. Continue reading “[MMM Coach] Writing Copy from Love vs. Fear (Video)”

A client recently told me she didn’t feel professional when she was marketing her mobile massage business because she didn’t have a website to direct people to when she told them about her business–especially when she was speaking with large businesses about hiring her to provide on-site massage services at their office or events.

“I feel like I have to have a website to direct them to where they can read more about my background and my services, and to ‘prove’ that I am a professional, or to have people find me when searching online for massage services.”

She was ready to devote a lot of time and money into hiring someone to help her create a website when she hired me as her coach, and I told her to put those plans on hold for now. She was shocked, but when I explained why, she understood better and was willing to wait on the website and use some of these other tactics I suggested first.

You might have heard this before: “People do business with who they know, like & trust.” Whether it’s a company and its reputation, or a person and their reputation or personality, building the “know, like & trust factor” is crucial if you want to gain customers or collaborators (others who assist you in reaching your goals).

NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP) is one of the modalities I am trained in that teaches ways to gain rapport with someone. This method uses what we have learned about how the mind processes and responds to information. And a technique to get someone to like and trust you is called “matching” or “mirroring.” By using this technique, you can gain rapport with someone within a few minutes.

If you are a coach or healer, you are likely often working yourself out of clients because they are dealing with short-term specific goals/challenges, which you help them resolve in a few sessions or a few months and then they’re “done.”

Although there are sometimes ways you can continue to offer services or products to them for the same or other issues, there are times when they truly don’t need anything else. Then it’s time to find another client to take their place (and the income you were receiving from them).

If your client turnover is frequent, here are a few simple tips to help you find more just like them (especially the ones you loved working with).

When doing a VIP Day with a new business client recently, she asked the million-dollar question–one that will impact the success of her start-up business at the very core:

How do I choose a niche market that will be right for me?

If you don't get this right, it can cost you a lot of time, sleep, stress and money. Which is why I focus a good deal of time and teaching on this topic with all my clients (even established ones if they are struggling to make a profit).

Aside from finding a market you can be passionate about helping and have the proven ability to help them, there are 6 criteria we look at that must be met in order to have a "viable niche." If any one of them is missing, you must change the niche. (And make sure you understand what a "niche" is in the first place)

I often get raised eyebrows at networking or business meetings when I share that I am a mindset coach for business owners, and that I use neuroscience techniques such as hypnosis to help people change their unproductive behaviors and achieve their goals more quickly, easily & permanently.

For those who show curiosity and ask to know more about why and how I use hypnosis, and if or how it could help them with THEIR business, I share the following explanation: